


Bring Them Home

by AboardAMoose



Series: The Mission [2]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Childbirth, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Family Feels, Flashbacks, M/M, Mpreg, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:35:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29925234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AboardAMoose/pseuds/AboardAMoose
Summary: Bucky Barnes has a better life than a boy born in Depression Era Brooklyn could ever have dreamed of. Steve Rogers and their daughter in his arms, a farmhouse to restore and fields to tend to. All he wants is to live that life.The asset still has a Mission. Scattered across the globe are the children HYDRA took from it. Its objective is to find them.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Series: The Mission [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2200737
Comments: 10
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So you guys asked for a sequel and... you may have a sequel. 
> 
> This fic is something of an exploration of a character coming to terms with trauma, and with disassociative identity disorder as a result of that trauma. I will put specific summaries and trigger warnings in the notes at the end of each chapter as we go, so folks are aware and can make informed choices. 
> 
> Please also be aware that tags will be added as we go.

There were good days and bad days.

The good days were better than anything two boys in Depression Era Brooklyn could have dared to dream of. Not even when they scampered up rooftops and fire escapes, where the oppression of moulding walls and the constant reminder of the icebox’s emptiness could no longer limit their fantasies, did they dream of this much joy. Not in the dark of night, where promises were whispered freely and breathed across fingers entangled over worn out sofa cushions, not even then could they have conceived of this. Even when their bodies transformed, when their worlds morphed from smog and highrises to fog and fields, not in their wildest moments could their imaginations have stretched that far.

A farm of their own. A child. An alarmingly expansive shared bank account that meant they never had to worry about having enough food or heat or new clothes when the old ones were worm through or enough blankets to stop Steve shivering through the night. Each other’s hands, just a stretch away, graspable at a whim.

On those sun-drenched good days, Bucky drifted awake gradually to the chorus of the birds that Sam had insisted on setting up multiple feeders for beyond their window, to the squabbles of the ducks that muddled away their days on the property’s lake, and to the hum of a slightly less tonal songbird a floor below. He rolled from duvet to dressing gown, trading one excessive softness for the other, before puttering downstairs in slippers forged of sheepskin. He used skills forged in brutality to stay silent so as not to interrupt the nursery rhyme emanating from the kitchen as it looped back round again.

“Jack and Jill went up the hill…”

He took the long-way round to the kitchen, ducking into their open-plan living space to watch from a distance as Steve swayed his way around the granite island, Sarah strapped to his chest in a contraption Clint had tried to convince them was called a ‘papoose’. Cold winter sunlight filtered through the windows, turning Steve’s exposed skin as golden as the hayfields they planned for the Western side of their acreage.

Had he ever envisioned that level of contentment on Steve’s curving lips? Bucky would have made him happy, that was a fundamental, whatever century, whatever universe they found themselves in. But flush with health well beyond the hopes he held and prayed for in the night, awash with love for the tiny creature he hardly took his eyes off… That dockside boy lost to the decades would never have dared nurture that much hope, lest it tempt the fates they so casually, so frequently struck them down.

“…To fetch a pail of water…”

Bacon was crackling away beneath the grill. Eggs, tomatoes, a small mountain of mushrooms sizzled in butter on the burner, while a growing stack of pancakes were evident in one of their double ovens, all shining chrome and modern convenience. Good, rich food, nourished by or plucked from the ground all around them, and bursting with flavour and the promise of full bellies.

Steve’s volume lifted to compete with the juice machine as he fed it oranges, his spare hand curving round to shield Sarah’s ears. “…Jack fell down and broke his crown…”

“Really Steve?” Bucky broke his cover to tease. “Is that how you want to teach our girl our origin story?”

Good mornings came with kisses that tasted like coffee, laced with dark notes and hazelnut, a more satisfying taste than any of their reused grounds could have hoped to impart. They came with a soft, impossibly tiny warm body cradled between two super-soldier chests, smelling of sweet milk and powder. With breakfasts overlooking a rickety porch Bucky couldn’t wait to tear to pieces and replace, overlooking their rippling, ridiculously blue lake stocked with bluegill and catfish, a well-mown lawn and the fields and forests beyond. On a good morning, whitetails and turkey could be seen weaving among the dogwoods, oaks and hickory, unconcerned by the men on the other side of the glass pointing their movements out to an infant who could not yet appreciate it.

Good mornings also came with the promise of a bone-deep peace, not just in the stillness but in the work.

Keeping a small human alive was a job in itself. It required endless translation of near-identical cries to divine her needs. It required unprecedented volumes of laundry and outfit changes in an endless cycle of feeds and changes and naps and refusals to feed and objections to being changed and outright strikes against the concept of naps. But it also involved hours of watching baby blue eyes, round with wonder as they attempted to track whatever brightly coloured toy her parents circled above her. Introducing her to the sight of her own feet, and laughing at how truly mind-blowing the concept was to her. Watching her stare, fascinated at a plush Hulk toy perched on her chest, or attempt to grasp and explore the latest new texture her skin had never before encountered. Cradling her as she settled into sleep, hours of nothing but the soft snuffling of her breath.

Restoring the farmhouse Natasha had found for them, and scheduling said restoration in such a way that shielded Sarah from wood and plaster dust, paint fumes and the undoubtedly deleterious consequences of drill vibrations was another pleasingly absorbing task for the good days. The focus demanded by wiring, the strength demanded by masonry, and the sheer sense of victory that came from a job done well were as effective as any talking therapy in Bucky’s view. Day by day, they turned a dull, dilapidated basement space into a gym able to keep two enhanced warriors occupied, and a cheaply constructed annex into airy bedrooms for when their friends came visiting. Or other children made themselves known. Perhaps.

The two of them competed for acts of destruction - the act of tearing ugly polystyrene squares out of the ceiling, or stripping away decades old wallpaper. They’d played strip poker to win the chance to take a sledgehammer to one of the inner walls, neither truly admitting that the forfeit was spending the day with Sarah. That had been a Good Day.

When they were awaiting a delivery or merely waiting for a layer to dry, construction paused and good afternoons sometimes meant company. Bucky’s efforts to shift the baby weight had come under critical threat from Laura‘s cheese making, while his heart suffered similar peril watching Steve tussle with Cooper and Lila in the Barton’s fields, just two miles from their own. Tony appeared from time to time, boots clamped to his shins to avoid any risk of Missouri soil daring to encroach upon his skin. Sometimes he stayed for sandwiches and to consult on an upgrade for Bucky’s arm, sometimes he hardly ducked his head inside before taking off to make the perimeter more defensible and, more recently, less likely to entangle deer. That had been a Bad Day. Even Natasha had been tempted down to the Mid West with the promise of the Rogers family’s first BBQ in the fall.

The nearest town was a half-hour truck ride away from the farm and a world away from 21st century Manhattan, but not wholly divorced from 1940s Brooklyn. Tumbledown cabins and barns in need of a lick of paint and some TLC from a structural engineer hid good people as liable to gossip about other insiders as they were to guard them from outsiders. Bucky watched with amusement as Steve garnered an excessive amount of satisfaction from the challenge of winning each and every one of them over, armed with good old-fashioned manners, a chiseled jawline and an infant daughter without a mother. Even the stoutest women of the wetlands were helpless to resist. A metal arm capable of hauling a tractor out of a ditch – and then a prize heifer out of a sinkhole and a fallen telegraph pole across a roadway – were enough to ingratiate the men of the neighbourhood to the Barnes-Rogers clan too.

Sometimes, though, those Good Days felt too good.

Bucky would have the weight of the mallet in his hands, but before his eyes the smooth wood would become the cold, hatched metal of a familiar pistol. He’d scoop up Sarah’s bottle and find the dishwater thick and scarlet. He’d smile at Melinda in the Cash’n’Carry and find a victim or a handler glaring back at him, and not know which was worse.

But then there was Steve. Steve with a taste of smoky sauce Bucky just had to taste, a special recipe from the Manavis family three farms over. Steve, ready to smudge his cheek with emulsion or flour in exchange for a long kiss, just because he could. Steve, chattering away about the market or Sam’s latest lady friend. A constant source of noise and distraction, anchoring Bucky to the present.

Steve only ever seemed to quiet as night approached. Their wee, homemade family made it a habit to while away their evenings in the sun room, watching the stars through the windows above or gazing at their reflection in the lake at the side, the fire crackling merrily in its chimney no matter the angle they chose. Steve, nestled between the muscles of Bucky’s thighs, watching Sarah fight off sleep against his chest. Or Bucky, head in Steve’s lap, fingers tracing through his hair, bouncing Sarah as she squealed with joy. Good days ended with closeness and warmth, the occasional yelp of a coyote in the distance, and the weaving of even grander dreams together. The two of them fell easily, each night, into debate over what to do with each of the outhouses on their land – “Just because we have stables does not mean we’re getting horses Buck“ – and rows about how to get best use of each of their fields - “What do you know about crop rotation punk?”

The fantasies were fuel enough to carry them through to bedtime, when they could haul bodies that felt like they were warmed sacks of honey off to bed. Sarah was tucked up each night in what once had been a walk in closet and now served as a snug nursery that had the benefit of being bombproof and doubling as a panic room.

On those Good Nights, lost time was made up. Limbs entwined beneath cotton sheets, locking two long-separated bodies back together, forms shuddering with as much desperation as it was possible to contain. Mouths and hands brought pleasure, whispered vows, and drew moans with the same determination as poison was drawn from a wound. New memories were built in an attempt to chase away broken ones.

But the broken ones were still there, engraved in every cell of the two men scorched by them. They made themselves known on the Bad Days.

Sometimes, it was nightmares that shattered their sleep. Steve, sweating, teeth gritted as he clutched at the sheets, haunted by battlefields and dead upon dead upon dead upon dead upon dead. Two and a half years had passed for him since the Battle of the Bulge. The endless barrage of shelling still rang in his ear drums. The lightning blue of HYRDA weapons flared behind his eyelids. Dust that had once been human was still embedded in his lungs. He’d wake, sobbing in Bucky’s urgent hold, the ghosts of men left to rot in Europe’s mud still clinging tight to him. Bucky’s sleep was hardly more settled, though the locations were more varied by decade and the dead.

Then there were the nights when it was Sarah who woke him. Night shifts were, as a matter of tradition, usually Steve’s gig. He was a ludicrously chipper morning person, and who was Bucky to deny himself the sight of his partner snoozing in the afternoon sun when it turned out Captain America did still need his 8 hours? But when the other side of the bed was cold, when Steve was thousands upon thousands of miles away fighting enemies that Bucky could hardly comprehend, it was Bucky’s turn to haul himself out into the chilly pre-dawn world to see to his daughter.

But in the dark, alone on those Bad Days, it was harder to seal himself away from fear. Having Sarah in his hold, suckling on her first meal of the day, only sharpened the edge of that fear, grinding it to a point closer to panic. They could come for him like this, growing soft and old in a rocking chair of all things. They could come for _her_ like they’d come for all his children, time after time. Rebecca. George. Bernadette. Tommy. Rose. All of them torn from him. Why would they leave him Sarah? Surely they’d not let another Enhanced, another child of the Winter Soldier, grow up learning to colour and build blocks instead of how to fight and destroy. Their enemies were massing, he knew it even if he could not see them. It was only a matter of time before they made a move on to destroy this undeserved bliss.

The spiral and dread seemed to possess no natural end.

Not on Bad Days.

Not when the emails were stacking up, lawyers threatening to shatter their fragile peace with prosecutions for war crimes, subpoenas, summons to testify to Congress, to the Hague, to the UN.

Not when every gurgle or new demonstration of muscle control from Sarah came tinged with bittersweet regret about five other infants who he’d never seen learn to smile.

Bad Days worsened when Sarah picked up on his fears. She fretted at best, restless and complaining, little whines of protest as she squirmed against his hold. When she pushed back at his chest in uncoordinated movement, it felt like rejection though he knew intellectually it was little more than flailing. But on their worst days, she wouldn’t stop screaming.

The sound was heart-breaking. No rocking or food or song could stop it. It sounded so much like she was in pain, and nothing he tried made any damn difference. She couldn’t tell him what was wrong, and he couldn’t do a thing to fix it for her. Hour after hour – days spent circling the sunroom, praying to a God that had long abandoned him as Sarah’s screams reverberating around the windows at every side. Only when she sobbed her way to a fitful unconsciousness did the crying end.

And then there was the Soldier. Lurking. An ever-present shadow in Bucky’s mind. Winter made himself known on the Bad Days. Hours disappeared when Winter was in charge, blank spots in time that left Bucky wrecked and wrung out, tear tracks leaving his cheeks tight and salt stained.

Yet it was on Bad Days that it made most progress on the Mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter-specific warnings:  
> Bucky reflects on the first months of his new life with Steve and Sarah. In doing so, he briefly references hallucinations involving blood and former-handlers.  
> Later on, Steve has nightmares from his time in WWII. This is followed by references to Bucky's fear of his children being taken from him again.  
> In the final paragraphs, references are made to disassociation.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A reminder that chapter warnings come at the end.

Tony Stark required a high volume of processing units. But he was one of the most useful of Steve Rogers’ associates, which made it worth the allocation.

Hill and Romanoff also ranked highly for competence, and the asset was confident they would demonstrate their usefulness in time, while the proximity of Barton’s resources were both a boon and a potential weakness through which the asset’s location might be exposed. The god Thor, while demonstrating significant strength, operated at a louder setting even than Stark, making the ratio of utility to effort required less positive. The Hulk… the Hulk the asset did not trust. And Wilson. Wilson was of moderate usefulness. The ability to wear a backpack was hardly a specialised skill, but Steve’s mood improved when Wilson was present, and Barnes was very clear that fell on the positive side of the ledger.

“You’re looking contemplative there snowflake. Like a Rodin statue. Or a monk. A grumpy one, obviously, don’t get offended,” the hologram of Tony Stark rambled from where he hovered, blue and rotating slightly above a journal-topped stack of pallets that was serving as a coffee table. “Wait! You can’t reach me to crush me right now. Do get offended this time – ha! See if I care!”

“Is contemplative not the desired state?” the asset asked, ignoring the notion that ‘offended’ was a concept recognised by its programming.

“Well, you’re all cross-legged like that, full yoga posing on the rug – actually yoga might help with this. JARVIS, make a note, that’s worth further consideration – rhythmic physical movement to occupy the prefrontal cortex, allowing the amygdala to process stored long-term memories more effectively.”

The asset didn’t always understand what Stark was saying, but Stark did not appear to require or expect him to. The asset was expected to filter the relevant from the irrelevant however. It was a familiar enough task. Most of its handlers spoke of things it did not understand either, rarely supplying the contextual data required for total comprehension unless it was essential to mission completion.

Steve was a different matter.

Steve always was.

Thinking of Steve was not going to help it complete its objective.

“Ready,” the asset ventured once Stark paused for breath, only 40% confident of achieving success in moving the man along.

It appeared its estimations were on the pessimistic side as Stark jolted in response. “Right, yes. All stations go,” the man promised. “JARVIS, light down, vitals monitoring on.”

“With your permission sir?” the voice embedded in the ceiling asked. The asset nodded, appreciating as it did so how the machine altered its audio output in order to sound hesitant. That was something the asset could understand.

The room dimmed and the asset closed its eyes, reducing visual stimuli. Sinking into standby mode was not difficult, not after decades of practice stilling itself to await the emergence of targets from perceived shelter, or for transportation to complete its journey. A few long breaths, cycling oxygen slowly to signal to the system what was required of it. Shoulders dip and… down into the haze.

When Stark spoke again, his voice was low and deliberate, the banter muted. “Alright Winter. Going backwards wasn’t working for us, so let’s try again from the start instead. We’re going to go back, to the early years of your existence. Strip away the WiFi and the satellite TV, before mobiles and Rubik’s Cubes and men on the moon. Back to the baby boom and Elvis and Leave It To Beaver. Can you do that for me?”

Half a century back. Before Stark had learned to walk. A world of bunkers unvisited, a world of throats yet un-slit, a world of bullets not yet forged. That’s what Stark was really asking of the asset - not to discard the trends of consumerism and pop culture, but to discard decades of violence and... To relinquish its grasp on this world, where half an ear was straining for the baby monitor and the other -

“Back to the beginning Soldier. Think. When was the first time you realised you were pregnant?”

All the way back.

Those early years were never something it chose to dwell on, a haze of steaming jungles, the press of furious populaces demanding a freedom the asset could not process, rage and rage and rage boiling across a world whose scabs had only just begun to lift. War in Korea. Uprising in Venezuela. Riots across America. The first time it had gazed through the sights of a M60, piercing lethality. Revolution in Lebanon. War in Vietnam. Uprising in Bolivia. Riots in London. Revolution in Cuba. The constant, hanging weight of the nuclear threat, the promise of it, the lust for it. War in Egypt. Uprising in Puerto Rico. The first time it had felt an Uzi spray from its hand. Riots in Japan. Revolution across Eastern Europe.

The asset reached for the anchor of its journals, the papers scrawled with its attempts to piece together the glimpses of turmoil and half-remembered conflict from a decade lived in snatches – then aborted the movement. That was not a part of its orders.

“There must have been a moment. When did you look down and know there was a child growing inside you?”

Was that what had happened? The asset knew, from observing human behaviour for vulnerabilities, from the cultural education programmes. It knew to look for that secret, contemplative touch. The hand against the belly that had yet to swell. The softness of the private smile that promised it would. Like carrying a child crushed beneath ribs and bladder was a thing to celebrate and not a reason to spend every heartbeat thrumming with fear.

_Fear._

The asset remembered fear. That response was engrained deep. Those early days were drenched in it. Tissue submerged in adrenal responses, glucose and calcium spiking, saliva production falling. A weapon ready to respond to any trigger.

Fear consumed those early years, before the asset understood the quiet that came with total compliance. But perhaps there was use in it now. Perhaps that was the route the asset needed, the thread that could guide it through the crowds of identical fury against a myriad of perceived injustice, through the muddle of murders stored in the mess of its memory banks, and take it back to the moment it sought.

When had that fear changed? When had that fear been roused, not for its own sake, but for something other than itself?

_The asset was good. The asset followed orders. It had learned enough. It did not need to be restrained; it hadn’t been restrained for long, dizzying months of operational mode. Restraints were for when it failed, when it needed to be wiped and could not control is actions sufficiently._

_How had it failed this time? What had it done to deserve its feet, splayed and strapped, hips spread wide by reinforced stirrups? If its handlers did not provide input on its failure, how could it alter its programming to avoid future transgressions?_

_Punishment without reason wasn’t unusual. It kept the asset primed. It kept it scanning its systems for potential faults and infractions, hypervigilant – and swift to learn when its handlers’ directives changed._

_But this. Some deep-buried fragment within the asset knew it was wrong. That it was different. Neither lesson nor retribution. This wasn’t even being administered from without. This was a fault from within, issuing from a fissure it could not see and that stemmed from no external source it could detect. It was an ever rising, fluctuating pressure ratcheting up within its core. That pressure had been building in pulses for approximately 12 hours and 47 minutes, and those pulses had been increasing in duration and intensity while the pauses between them diminished. Despite that, no one had administered anything other than a few sips of water to keep the asset hydrated – there was no indication the water had been anything but that, anything that could do_ this.

_It yearned to reach for the source of the pain, the stomach which had grown so distorted and swollen over the long months of its consciousness. That heavy weight, which had so burdened it, stretching its form and straining its muscles – that was the cause. The asset was sure that if it could just place a hand upon it, warm and press back and rub, it would ease. Just a touch would be enough._

_Yet even as the asset fought against the reinforced restraints, even as it panted into the medical wing’s stale air, even as its back throbbed and its stomach was compressed - the fragment was screaming at it. The fragment it tried so hard to bury was there, shouting louder than it had permission to. The pain was ballooning to new, aching levels of constriction, and the remnant was shouting something that simply could not make sense, something the asset was unable to lodge smoothly against its understanding of its construction._

_Something about a child._

“That’s it, Soldier. You’re back there, aren’t you? You’re right where you need to be.”

_How could a machine produce a child? How could a weapon replicate? How could metal produce flesh?_

_Yet it was not the asset’s purpose to understand. Hadn’t it been informed that on multiple occasions? And the asset could not dispute that its operations had been sub-optimal: rejecting nutrients, functioning at lower than average speeds, requiring longer periods on standby. For months, its failure had stoked its handlers’ fury– the asset’s computing cells shied, shutting down that memory before more than an impression of crackling blue energy making contact with sensitive thighs and the stench of singed hair could seep through._

_Then there was the swelling of its abdomen. Lying upon the tilted metal bed, it filled the asset’s horizon, demanding its attention. That unnatural, curving bulge, webbed with purple marks as the epidermis layer stretched beyond its natural limits. Its weight drew the asset’s form down, forwards, hanging heavy between its legs._

_And it hurt. Блять did it hurt. The pain within the asset’s gut peaked, derailing its attempt to process the information, its mind and body joined in resistance. Straining against the metal snapped across its wrists, it crunched forwards over its distorted stomach, where the pain hadn’t ceased. Its components were all contracting, unbearable tightness within. It was… it was not fading. One wave rolled over into another, and the asset cried out at the lack of a mercy it used to know._

_Twisting, contorting pain. Pain that yanked at its core and blurred the entire world about it, diminishing its existence down and throwing it from one new agony to the next. Not stopping. Rendered down to nothing more than a squirming, naked form for… It had stopped counting time. It did not know, its pulse was elevated, it was not counting, if the handler knew it had failed so –_

_Water flooded its cheeks, and it had hardly had time to wrench its mouth to the side before it was retching. Liquid splattered against the tiled floor._

_Its handler would be furious. Make it clear it up._

_But there was no chance to grovel or apologise. Throat burning, hair that had fallen into the stream sticking against its cheek, the pain was ceaseless and threw the asset’s form back into an agonising arch, thrusting its stomach into the air. It had no control. No power._

“Sir? Sergeant Barnes is demonstrating signs of distress.”

“Yep, I see that. Where’re you at frosty? Talk to me now.”

_Something new. Signals. Urges._

_Not that. Please not that._

_The asset knew well enough that its handler responded no more to begging than to reciting the nations of the worlds or the alphabet. But the remnant was not so well trained. And it was crying out in horror as the realisation crashed through their entire entity. There was nothing else those sensations could be._

Please. _Not a child. Please not here. Not in this hellhole. Not in the hands of these masters. What had these bastards done to him?_

_Fear. Yes, there was that fear._

_The asset didn’t know which thought belonged to which one of them, couldn’t sort the threads where they were tangled and overwhelmed by the undeniable biological imperative that it push its child into the world. It was sweeping through its lower body with all the force of a tidal wave, and there was no resisting it. Its muscles were acting without consent, bearing down into the pain._

“You with me Soldier? What do you see? Any writing? Anything on the walls? Even a language will do.”

_How could it open its eyes? They were squeezed together as fiercely as every other part of its upper body, as gritted as its teeth, as clenched as its jaw, as tight as its fists in those infuriating cuffs as the asset pushed._

_And now that it knew, it understood the feedback rippling between its legs. With the knowledge that it was a baby inside, it could identify the fullness within. The weight wasn’t just a liquid thing, it was solid and hard, the heaviness of a human form carving a channel in its wake, pulverising its way into the world. But it wouldn’t descend unaided._

_There were no instructions, but innate programming took over. The child felt enormous, locked within the asset’s bulging pelvis. Widening the exit was imperative, and the asset dropped its knees apart, wedging its feet more securely in the stirrups to brace itself effectively. Each time the pain grew, the asset gasped in as much oxygen as it could, held it within its lungs, and strained with everything it had. Long, frozen moments of effort, locked within the contraction, until the pain released its hold and the asset could pant and gulp, preparing itself for the next round. And on it went._

_A haze of hours, labouring in that room, the baby dragged its way towards the world slowly, so fucking slowly through the asset’s core. Trapped, unable to do more than roll its hips and push for as long and as hard as it could with each rolling crest of agony, desperate for the baby to move lower._

Words breaking through the fog of pain and effort.

“This is your mission Soldier. Tell me what you see.”

Orders.

_The asset snapped its eyes open, visual field filling with its sweat-drenched, bulging body, stained red with the flush of its thrumming blood. It was shaking with effort, trembling with it as it pushed and as pain gripped every facet of its centre. But that was irrelevant._

“Fény **.”** _Sulphurous, yellow light, blazing in every corner of the room._ “Szemek **.** ”

“J? Translate.”

“I believe Sergeant Barnes is saying ‘light’ and ‘eyes’ sir.”

“There are eyes on you Soldier? Whose eyes?”

_So many eyes. All gathered to watch the asset’s punishment, high above in the gallery. Mocking eyes. Laughing eyes. Disgusted eyes. The handler’s eyes, scornful and sharp. Impatient._

“Tell me about the handler.”

“Nem!” Not that. Not him. Another memory. _An iron grip upon his hips. The pain of entry rather than exit._

“Sir!”

“Steve!”

_An echo, ringing out, over the decades. That strange sound blurted into that gas-lit subterranean cell. The asset, not knowing why, just that Steve was what it needed. The remnant knew, the remnant was certain Steve would ease its joints, relieve the humiliating stretch across hipbones. So wide. So exposed. Steve would… Steve would…_

_A touch on its hand. But the asset didn’t slip again. Wouldn’t. A woman, severe and scowling. Yet grounding the asset with gentleness, just for an instant before -_

_“Etelka!” The handler’s voice. The asset flinched, even as it barked at another._

“Etelka,” the asset gasped.

_The world titled forwards, and the asset howled as agony rushed up to meet it. The table snapped into place in a vertical, wrenching the asset’s fists against the cuffs, gravity thrusting its form down until it hung in a violent squat above the floor._

_“Aaahh!” The breath was knocked out of the asset’s lungs. It would have doubled over if it could, over the vice of its stomach tightening, over the rush of the child grinding towards the world._

_It burned like no pain the asset had ever experienced, and all the asset could do was sob as the child’s head stretched the lips of its body impossibly wide. The pressure between its hips was unbearable, the split at its entrance on fire, lightning radiated up its spine and throughout it all still its body demanded it continued to push._

_There were tears mingling with the sweat on the asset’s cheeks as it was flung into another surging contraction. Those long, extended pushes were a thing of the past – all it had energy to do was strain in short, hard bursts over and over, struggling to marshal its muscles into obedience. Pushing though the weight of the child’s head stretched sensitive skin to its limits, taut and tissue thin. Conscious, all the while, of the handler in the galley, of his wrath if the asset failed._

_The woman who had thrown the asset into this new avalanche of sensation was still nearby – the asset could see a slender, stockinged leg as it stared at the ground, trapped in its labours as firmly as the child seemed stuck within it._

_Grunting aloud, the asset didn’t hear the order come. The only thing the asset knew was the force of her hand as it came down upon its belly. The shoot of agony_ blinding. _Relentless, cruel with it as she pushed and the asset pushed and the baby’s head cleaved it in two._ Agony _as she_ _waited for the next_ _contraction to fall, when the asset was already shouting out and twisting as the fire flared to its highest level yet, and her hand bore down again – forcing the child out and out and, Christ he couldn’t stretch any wider, the massive head had to be the limit, it was coming and -_

_There was something else, something embroidered on the pocket of her maroon coat, visible as she leaned across the asset to reach the rock-hard globe of its pregnant stomach._

_The head was out but the shoulders were trapped, jamming hard against already bruised flesh. But the asset was a weapon. Even before it was a weapon, it was a soldier. It was a fighter and it could fight to deliver the child, to end the pain, to see the name, to see his baby, to –_

“Farkas!”

“Etelka Farkas?” Tony repeated.

“’Etelka’, a female name, Hungarian in origin,” Jarvis informed them. “Popular in the late nineteenth and late twentieth centuries. ‘Farkas’, a surname of Ugric origin, also prevalent in Hungary.”

_But that wasn’t the name that mattered. There was another name that day. The child that fell from the asset’s body, that was snipped away, swaddled and gone. But the asset got a glimpse of wide eyes as blue as the faraway skies, and in that instant he knew the child’s name. A name the asset didn’t know why it knew then. Rebecca. His firstborn. His twin. His daughter._

The asset barely registered JARVIS bringing the light back up, or Stark jabbering away. Lazy. Foolish. Dangerous. But there was a phantom ache cramping across its belly, and its head throbbed so loudly it had to be audible to any trainee agent. There were no stirrups, no straps. Nothing to keep it from running, so it fled.

­-

Steve found the asset in their nursery, some time after sunset. Sweeping forwards, Steve was a battering ram, a gale force wind, arms out, ready to greet, reaching.

“Hey sweethear-”

Then he stopped. Inches away from the rocking chair.

The asset didn’t move.

“Sorry.”

One careful step backwards. Leaving the asset’s space. Another step to the side. Leaving the exit clear.

“How’s she doing?” Steve nodded to the infant in the asset’s arms. “She asleep?”

“No.” How long had the asset been here, sat with a plushie unicorn in one hand and its daughter’s soft head nestled in the crook of the other arm? It hardly remembered coming here, plucking her from her crib, yet it must have – then something pinged in its recollection, hiking it out of the fog. Steve’s tread, uneven. His stance, favouring his left side. The faint run of green beneath his cheek. “You’re damaged.”

A scowl. Because Steve didn’t like it when the asset referred to others as a machine, or because the asset was not meant to highlight weaknesses in its handlers?

“Hurt,” the asset corrected, belatedly, as Sarah gurgled happily in its grip.

The scowl became something else. Something more complicated. “Yeah. It’s okay though. I’ll be alright by morning. Can I-” those startling blue eyes dipped down towards the baby. “Can I get a cuddle from her please?”

The asset paused to allow for proper observation. Steve’s skin was a shade paler than the norm, but he was clean, in fresh clothing. Nothing to mar Sarah’s form. The strength that was so core to Steve’s existence, that radiated from him in undeniable waves. That was still there, it still held him upright. But he was unsteady enough that it was noticeable.

Why was he allowing the asset to see his vulnerability?

“Go sit,” the asset barked out, surprising even itself.

Even more surprising when Steve followed the instruction without question, taking orders from a subordinate. The asset watched in something close to incomprehension as the blond took slow, deliberate steps towards their bed in the next room, dropping down onto the hard mattress they shared and the thick blankets they piled high upon the bed.

It was interesting to study Steve’s behaviour when he took Sarah into his arms. The way his shoulders eased. His smile returned. Tension dissolved away as he cooed at the infant he’d been first to hold. Sarah reached for him too, fists swinging upwards as if to grab for his nose. There was… delight brimming in twin sets of blue eyes as they gazed at each other. Coincidence was responsible for the similarity in the shared shade of their irises rather than any genetic link but…

The interaction made the asset feel something as complicated as that not-scowl out in the doorway.

Its handlers had not provided definitions for this.

That limp was still nagging at the asset’s consciousness. It was a risk, altering its view of the property’s security. The asset dropped to its knees.

“Winter?” Both blue eyes flicked across to the asset in surprise at the movement, but it ducked its gaze away, gesturing for the leg.

Steve was intelligent as well as strong. Steve understood the asset as well as anyone, so Steve held the limb out for examination, shifting his weight to keep Sarah well balanced. Rolling back the pant leg revealed a bandage wrapped up the length of Steve’s shin. Above that, where skin peeked out, a faded pattern of round bruises marred the normally creamy flesh, as if from a run of suction cups. The bandage was clean, unmarked by any seepage and the scent of antiseptic was well detectable beyond it. Reluctantly, the asset conceded that whoever had patched Steve up had done an acceptable job.

It would be better to understand the full extent of the damage. But that would mean pulling back the medical tape, no doubt plucking golden hairs from their bed. It would mean disturbing the healing flesh, the clot of blood mingled with threads of fabric – lengthening recovery time, extending the vulnerability. Better to leave it, even if it meant less data.

But Steve would have let it happen. Steve wasn’t even watching the asset as it handled the injury, his weakest point. Instead, some way above the asset’s head, Steve was chanting a ridiculous tune about an exploding rodent, and Sarah was giggling in delight at the moment of ‘surprise’, no matter how often he repeated himself.

Abruptly, the asset realised it had lingered too long, too close to Steve’s space. Handlers didn’t like it when it hovered. “Dinner. I’ll start dinner,” it offered as Steve ran his fingers in spiderlike motions over the baby’s belly for her amusement.

The whispered endearments and teasing nonsense Steve was spilling into their daughter’s ear paused, as the blond’s head jerked up. “You sure?” he asked. “Why don’t you start, I’ll join you in a minute.”

-

It happened frequently enough that Steve could tell when the shift took place, at least much of the time. Sometimes it took seconds. Twice now, it had taken hours, hours of Bucky jangly and uncertain, losing time and unable to fit within his skin. Not this time though.

Steve watched from the corner of a drooping eyelid as the personality he thought of as Winter rubbed at his eyes, over and over as if the growing presence of Bucky Barnes within him could be scrubbed away like sleep. Wincing as he pressed against his temples, chasing off a migraine or a persistent aura – just another discomfort HYDRA had left to linger behind them. And then, a few minutes later, there he was. Bucky, stretching and yawning, all doe-eyes and ruffled smiles as he padded over to flop into the space on the sofa Steve made for him. The ease with which he buried into Steve’s chest, the simple confidence as he covered Steve’s hand with his own, gentle upon Sarah’s slowly fluttering back, the quick kiss he stole because he knew it would always be welcome, wanted. Every movement was a vivid contrast to the Soldier’s hesitance and distance, the two of them such exquisite opposites.

“I’m beat,” Bucky groaned softly into the deep blue tufts of Steve’s fleece sweater.

“Well I was actually beat. On. By a robotic octopus.”

“This century’s super weird.”

The blond merely hummed a non-committal response, tucking Bucky more firmly beneath his arm. This was what he’d craved, this man and this child secure in his hold, warmth and contentment. From the moment the Quinjet had streamed out of the barn hours before, that was the vision which had kept him running. But coming back home to Winter was no disappointment. The quiet, careful man who offered Steve a fragile trust, all the more precious for its rarity. How could Steve feel anything but gratitude when the Soldier trusted him enough to share his life and his time with him? And how could Steve begrudge Winter the distance he needed to keep himself together, after all he’d experienced?

Above them, the squares of glass that made up the ceiling were half-filled with snow. He made a mental note to get the ladder out in the morning, to ensure the wood could take the weight of the powder if the blizzard picked up overnight. Even as Bucky’s thumb ran across the ridges of his knuckles, skin whispering under the touch. Even as Sarah dropped into deeper sleep, entirely passed out atop his ribs. Even as the words slipped from his lips.

“Do you ever talk to him?”

“Who?”

“The Soldier. Winter.”

Silver eyes tilted up at Steve, curious. But Bucky didn’t hide from him. “I hear him sometimes. Warning me. About the gun that Mrs Hearst keeps under the counter by the checkout. Or how I shouldn’t turn my back on old Edwin. He maps the exit routes of every room we walk into and calculates the top three ways to kill everyone we encounter based on speed, noise and relative convenience. And even if he doesn’t tell me, I know he’s doing it. That some part of me is doing that math. So yeah. We talk.” Bucky’s voice was hard, as steely as his eyes, perhaps more so than his arm.

“Sounds a lot to me like he’s still trying to keep you safe Buck, just the way he knows how,” Steve ventured. When all he received was a ‘humph’ in return, he persisted, “So Winter can see through your eyes when you’re in control - but you don’t know what’s going on when he’s running the show?”

Grimacing, Bucky confirmed, “Back in my fucking box mostly.” He winced again. “Fudging. Sorry Sarah.” But there was something lingering there, something haunted.

Steve snuck his fingers down to Bucky’s chin, guiding him upwards. “Hey. You’re not in your box now.” Bucky met him in the middle of their space, his lips gentle, pulling reassurance from the kiss. “You’re here.”

“I know but…” Bucky only leaned back enough to rest his forehead against Steve’s own. “It leaks sometimes. The two of us. At night, the dreams. Flashes when I slip through into him. And during the day now – it can be anything, a smell or… or a sound.” Attentively, Steve’s palm rubbed up and down Bucky’s side, offering a comfort Winter wouldn’t accept from him. “And it’s getting worse. We never used to slip between each other this much.” As Steve watched, Bucky’s eyes were becoming red-rimmed, more vivid the further he got through his hoarse confession.

“You’re switching most days,” he confirmed. “I guess it wasn’t like that with HYDRA.”

Bucky shook his head. “The last seventy years is just... Those flashes of what he did with my body. The rest… I’m in that black box. I think when he was exhausted, or it was too much sometimes-” A full body flinch went through him. “Then I would see. Feel – fuh-”

Rapidly, Steve rushed to reassure. “Here – you’re here, not back there.”

But Bucky was too far gone. “Even today Steve. I know he was remembering… something. Something that hurt more than…” Bucky gave a soft moan of pain, jerking his chin as if he could dislodge the ghost of the memory through movement alone. “It’s right there, just out of reach. And I don’t know if it’s me killing someone or torturing them, or them torturing me, ripping or… or raping or -” He spat the words like bitter bile “-And I have _no control_ over whether it’s going to leap up on me or whether it’s going to just fade away.”

The thread of the conversation Steve had expected to follow when he broached the subject had well and truly disappeared. Had he pushed for Bucky to talk too quickly after the switch? But the words had begun dripping out now, so he just waited, caressing over cloth and listening to each one.

“I just want him gone.” Bucky’s voice cracked as he spoke. “I don’t want to lose any more of our time. I don’t want to spend Sarah’s childhood in a black box. I don’t want to constantly be told all the ways my neighbours could kill me or you or Sarah if I let my guard down. I don’t want to keep waking up far away from you because he can’t deal with… I want him gone.”

How could Steve know what it felt like? He could see the confusion and grief it caused Bucky but… Winter wasn’t exactly grief-free either. “He’s still got a mission Buck.”

Their mission. A shudder of revulsion ran through Bucky, unchecked. As if he suddenly couldn’t bear the weight of Steve’s palm at his waist, fingers splayed out against his belly, nor the contact of their brows, he surged upwards, away, breaking for cover. “His mission? As far as I’m concerned, Sarah’s an only child. Her siblings are gone and grown. There’s no getting them back. Him dredging up the past isn’t going to undo anything, it’s just going to hurt.”

Unable to help himself, Steve said, “That’s not fair darlin’. Don’t blame Winter for what HYDRA-”

“Fair?” The single syllable cracked the air between them. “What part of this situation is fair?”

Bucky was gone from the room a moment later.

Steve stared down at the infant asleep on his chest and blew out a breath that ruffled the fluff of her hair. She was sleeping so deeply, she hadn’t even stirred as her fathers spoke just above her. There was a small part of Steve that envied her that particular ability.

“What’re we gonna do about your Papas hey darlin?” Sarah didn’t seem to have any more idea than him.

When Steve found Bucky getting ready for bed, stomping across their bedroom to aggressively fold the laundry he’d promised to do the morning before the Winter-sodding-Soldier had taken a joyride with his body – Steve tucked Sarah into the paediatrician-recommended sleeping position and tried again, “D’you not think-?”

“Christ alive, Steve, how did your Ma never teach you to drop a thing?”

“D’you not think,” Steve persisted “Winter deserves some of this peace we have as well? From what I can tell, yeah he’s killed – under duress – but he’s also kept you safe. Near enough whole. They tortured him-”

“Sorry, am I not tortured enough for you?” Bucky spat, and the way he planted himself firmly on the other side of the bed screamed that he was gearing up for a fight. The whirr of his normally silent Stark-tech arm was audible across the mattress. “I took enough hurt that they split my fucking brain in two but-”

“No, Buck! That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying. Think about it. I wake up in the morning, there’s a non-negligible chance the man I wake up next to isn’t you.”

“This isn’t about you!”

“No, it’s about you and Winter. And he’s hurtin’ real bad. I can’t let that be.”

“Of course you can’t,” Bucky growled. “That’s why he needs to disappear. Look.” Bucky stared down at the sheets he appeared to have twisted in his hands, and the anger seemed to drain from him. “Look – Steve. It’s me next to your bed right now. I’d really like to get in it and not be angry at you when you’re in it with me. Can we drop it for now?”

Steve sighed. “Yeah. Okay. But-”

“Steve!”

“Okay.”

For a long moment, Steve stood there as Bucky returned to his pile of laundry in silence. Then he reached for the basket, pulling a load towards himself to fold. Sorting shirts into a separate basket due for ironing. Creating a minute heap of the softest cotton and wool in pastels and primary colours for sliding away into Sarah’s drawers, as gentle with each tiny garment as he would be with her. Passing socks back to Bucky to match. Sliding the legs of jeans through hangers and crossing the arms of their sweaters.

As he transferred two identical-but-apparently-not-quite black socks into Bucky’s grip, their fingers grazed against each other. Automatically, Steve moved to jerk his fingers back, but at the same moment Bucky grasped at them. His grip trembled.

“It’s right there,” Bucky whispered, and when Steve looked, he found Bucky rigid. The tendons in his arms were visible, straining, his forehead crumpled, every muscle compressed. At once, Steve dropped the socks and hauled Bucky up against his chest. Because at least for Bucky, he could do that, touch and ground and hold. “There’s hands, and eyes, and… yellow like sulphur an-and –” When Bucky cried out in pain, hands flying to his stomach, Steve ached in sympathy.

With one hand, Steve tossed the last of the laundry aside, tugged the blankets back and bodily pulled his partner down into the bed. But Bucky flipped them, deliberately covering himself with the heat of muscled supersoldier.

Winding their legs together, Bucky forced his eyes open and demanded, “Talk to me. Keep me he- oh god! He-here.” His fingers dug into the small of Steve’s back and the dip of his shoulderblades, crushing their bodies together. His metal palm pressed hard against Steve’s spine, as if to force the phantom pain in his gut out even through his partner’s form. “Please Stevie.”

Who was Steve to argue, when Bucky begged? “So. Chicago,” he grasped for the nearest words to say. “The water’s beautiful, but I think probably more beautiful when it’s not strewn with robot octopus parts. Pepper says they’re going to blame us for an ecological incident – like we were deliberately stirring up the lakebed and electrocuting the fish rather than the actual construction of mechanical evil. Lucky the protesters tend to target the Tower, even though Tony wasn’t on duty today.” He knew that he was speaking a mile a minute, but Bucky didn’t seem to mind – too busy breathing shallowly against the shoulder his head was pressed against. “But let me tell you, you’d have laughed like anything if you’d been there. If you’re envisaging something silver and chrome, don’t – someone had taken the time to paint the thing bright green, yellow spots – like a bath toy. There was one moment where the octopus had Thor dangling upside from one tentacle, Sam from the other, me, Nat-”

“You got-” Bucky’s voice seemed to come from a distance as he attempted to follow the story, battling through the turmoil within his mind. “You got a picture?”

“Have you met the internet?” the blond responded.

“You can’t meet the internet Steve.” There was his Bucky Barnes, a half-smile playing on his lips. Not all the way there, but sliding back towards him, not slipping away. “Show me later. Tell me about what the octopus did to Wilson.”

So Steve talked, as the tension gradually unwound from the form beneath him. As the snow fell against their windows, and Bucky eventually fell into an exhausted doze, tired enough to sleep as deeply as their daughter in the next room over.

Rest took longer to find Steve, as he sorted through all that his partner had told him and wondered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter summary  
> The Soldier sits down with Tony to examine his past. He experiences flashbacks to the first time he gave birth. This section contains warnings for brief flashbacks to rape, an emetophobia warning and some elements of forced birth.  
> Steve then returns home from a fight, injured, to find the asset recovering. The asset checks on Steve's wounds.  
> Steve later watches at the Soldier switches back to Bucky, who talks about his relationship with the Soldier - portrayed as a separate personality to his own. He describes his fear of flashbacks and experience of them and disassociation. He and Steve argue about the mission and Bucky briefly experiences a flashback to the same memory the Soldier had summoned earlier that day.


End file.
